January 2010 – Funk Library

Big lovers of fast food. The first 2010 issue of British Food Journal included an article that sheds light on the dramatic increase in fast food consumption in the U. S. during the 1990s. Authors used government survey data to analyze demographic and socioeconomic factors that influenced this growth. Findings revealed that fast food consumption:

Increased until consumers reached age 20-30, then decreased
Increased as household income grew to about $50,000-60,000, then decreased
Decreased as household size grew
Was highest among males living outside central cities of the Midwest and South

Presentations at the 2009 ACE/NETC conference . We are adding to the ACDC collection about 30 presentations from the recent conference of these two partnering organizations: ACE (Association for Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life and Human Sciences) and NETC (National Extension Technology Conference). Sessions ranged across international communications, leadership and management, marketing, media relations, photography, publishing, research, video, web content and design, and writing. A few samples of presentations you can review online:

Issue management
Media usage by farmers and ranchers
Wrangling scientific writing
Trends in agricultural communication research
Creative commons licenses
Writing and editing effective web content
How a web page is seen
Three options for sharing presentations online

View sessions online here .

You can now read the Journal of Applied Communications online . It is available in full text from ACE. Until now, only the abstracts have been available online. Articles in the latest issue feature:

Case study on use of blended e-learning tools
An educational partnership for genetics outreach
Voter confidence in the agricultural industry
Educational efforts to serve producers with disabilities
Organizational learning in response to an anthrax outbreak
Readership of extension publications in digital and printed formats

Read them here .

A research review: information needs and seeking patterns in developing countries. A recent article in the International Information and Library Review reported results of a literature review of studies done on the information needs and information-seeking behavior of rural and urban residents of eight developing countries. Among the findings and conclusions:

“Basic human needs make up the majority of information needs across all countries investigated.”
“Lack of education remains the primary obstacle to meeting the information needs of the working poor in developing countries.”
“The disparity in information needs between urban educated and non-educated citizens compared to those who live in rural areas in developing countries is staggering.”
“Informal information networks are by far the most preferred means of gathering information that individuals feel is reliable and authentic.”
“While extension workers and rural libraries are considered to be good options for finding good-quality information, they are not as heavily relied on.”
“A digital divide continues to exist in an increasingly digital information world.”
“In rural communities, the public library could become an important resource center because it is through the library that citizens will be able to take control of their lives and careers by becoming more knowledgeable.”

Citation: Information needs and information-seeking behavior
Author contact: Renee Dutta at rd2397@gmail.com

Media guidelines from Chuck Zimmerman . We have added to the ACDC collection a summary of five useful guidelines that Chuck Zimmerman of ZimmComm New Media offered in AgWired early in 2009. He noted there has been a lot of talk about how the media room of today should be configured and managed. “I just thought I’d throw out some ideas to help move the conversation along.”

Citation: Media room guidelines
View his suggestions here .

“Makeover” TV concept not always for home building and decorating . A Kenyan television series introduced recently uses the makeover principle to show smallholders how to improve their livelihoods. Writing in the February 2008 issue of Developments , Louise Tickle described how “Shamba Shape-Up!” explores “some of the typical problems encountered by smallholder families on the outskirts of Kenya’s towns and cities,” then “brings in a crack team of experts to sort them out smartish.” The word “shamba” means “smallholding.” By the end of the third series, five million viewers had watched the half-hour program.

Citation: 30 minute makeover
View this report online here .

Communicator activities approaching

February 6-9, 2010
Research and professional development meeting of the Agricultural Communications Section, Southern Association of Agricultural Scientists in Orlando, Florida.
Information: http://agnews.tamu.edu/saas

April 17-21, 2010
“Between passion & press ure” 54th Annual Congress, International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) hosted by the Belgian Association of Agricultural Journalists at Ostend, Belgium.
Information: http://www.ifaj2010.org

April 21-23, 2010
“Celebrating success in America’s heartland” 2010 Agri-Marketing Conference sponsored by the National Agri-Marketing Association (NAMA) in Kansas City, Missouri USA
Information: www.nama.org

April 26-29, 2010
XIIIth World Congress of the International Association of Agricultural Information Specialists (IAALD) in Montpellier, France. Organized by Agropolis International.
Information: http://iaald2010.agropolis.fr

Ah, to be a tech rep . We close this issue of ACDC News with an agricultural example of why we should tip our hats to the “customer care representatives” who field questions from computer users. This is a real exchange, as reported on citeHR.com:

Tech rep: What’s on your screen right now?”

Caller: “A stuffed animal my boyfriend got me at the grocery store.”

Best regards and good searching. Please pass along your reactions, suggestions and ideas for the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center. Feel free to invite our help as you search for information. And please suggest (or send) agricultural communications documents we might add to this unique collection. We welcome them in hard copy (sent to Ag Com Documentation Center, 510 LIAC, 1101 S. Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801) or in electronic format sent to docctr@library.uiuc.edu .

Get in touch with us when you see interesting items in the ACDC collection and can’t gain full-text access through information in the citation, or through online searching. We will help you gain access.

Two new studies of computer and Internet use among U. S. producers . You may be interested in these reports we added recently to the ACDC collection:

1. “Farm computer usage and ownership.” Survey conducted by the National Agricultural Statistics Service of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. August 2009.

View the 28-page report here .

2. “NAFB Internet usage study.” Telephone survey by Ag Media Research during August and September 2009. Developed and funded by the National Association of Farm Broadcasting.

View the summary presentation here .

Read a summary news release here .

Telling agriculture’s (or someone’s) story. A new feature from the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) highlights 40 examples of rural-urban communications approaches used by organizations to advance their interests and views. Authors Jim Evans and Owen Roberts explore “how point-of-view communicators can contribute in the complex maze of rural-urban issues and relations.” This fifth feature in their series examines techniques such as these used around the world:

Events and occasions
Media-based efforts
Action groups
Educational approaches
Partnering with media
Local farm initiatives

You can read this feature on the IFAJ web site.

How a small newspaper uses social media in a rural area. Mark Coddington and Stephanie Romanski of the Grand Island Independent (Nebraska USA) recently used a podcast to discuss creative uses of the Web and social media. The Independent (20,000 circulation) serves a city of 45,000, along with 16 rural counties around Grand Island. Presenters described their experiences with tools such as Twitter and CoveritLive to get news faster, extend their presence, humanize the paper and build trust. One example involved live reporting from a “Rural Harvest Days” event.

Listen to their podcast here .

“Enormous gaps in technological achievement remain” among nations of the world, according to a recent World Bank report: Global economic prospects 2008: technology diffusion in the developing world . Authors of the 224-page volume noted the promise of diffusion through new information technologies such as mobile phones and, to some extent, computers. However:

“Even upper-middle-income countries have less than one-third of the level of Total Factor Productivity (TFP) of high-income OECD countries, and low-income countries have only 7 percent. The gap in TFP levels between high-income countries and Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa has widened since 1990. Moreover, the gap between major centers and lesser cities and rural economics remains large even in the most successful countries.”

View the document online here .

Winning with a shot in the dark. Jason Jenkins of the Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives earned national “Photographer of the Year” honors recently for a shot in the dark. His photo, “Gigging by Firelight,” was recognized by the Cooperative Communicators Association (CCA). He had joined a small group of fishermen for an evening of following a fishing tradition of the Missouri Ozarks culture, using all-traditional equipment.

View the photo and description online here .

“Americans oppose most farm subsidies.” That is the title of a research summary we added recently from the Program on International Policy Attitudes, University of Maryland. A nationwide survey during March-April 2009 revealed that 61 percent of citizen respondents said they oppose U. S. subsidies going to large farming businesses. Only 36 percent said they favor such subsidies. This pattern was similar among Republicans, Democrats and Independents.

However, 77 percent said they favor subsidies to small farming businesses (those under 500 acres). They expressed support for such subsidies in farm states (79 percent) as well as non-farm states (75 percent).

View the citation here .
View a summary of findings online here .

Communicator activities approaching

January 25, 2010
Deadline for submitting research papers, research proposals and theses/dissertations for the 2010 Conference of the Association for Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life and Human Sciences (ACE). The conference takes place June 14-17 in St. Louis, Missouri.
Information: Emily Rhoades at rhoades.100@cfaes.osu.edu

“Would you and your beautiful daughter like some mountain oysters?” This may not be the ideal way to improve rural-urban relations, columnist Lee Pitts confided in a Farm World column we read recently. He has been urged out of the PR circuit, it seems, after the response he got to this question from a visitor named Reginald – and after his wife’s efforts failed to undo the public relations damage he had done. “…I do miss serving the townies fresh fried mountain oysters and then watching them turn green when I tell them what they are,” Pitts admitted.

Citation: Playing nice with the “townies”
Search here on “mountain oysters” to learn about them.

Month: January 2010

ACDC News – Issue 10-02

ACDC News – Issue 10-01

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